


the spring

by cirque



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bigfoot - Freeform, Monster horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:28:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24292876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cirque/pseuds/cirque
Summary: After all, there were monsters about.
Relationships: (F & M & A) Eccentric Backwoods Woman & Her Adopted Bigfoot Son & Bigfoot Hunters (OWNH)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6
Collections: Multifandom Horror Exchange (2020)





	the spring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sweetcarolanne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/gifts).



They came in the spring, with the warm winds, blowing down the mountains and dragging reluctant clouds. They came every year, in droves of gangs and gaggles, without fail. The nearest town was twenty miles away and seemed to spore the hunters like flies on old meat, and they more often than not carried guns, or crossbows, even the odd sword. They drove up the mountain trail in four-by-fours, crackling gravel beneath the tires. There was never a spring without them. They were as much a part of the mountainside as the bobcats and the dragonflies.

Spring was unwelcome, then. The ground thawed and the hunters moved in; it was just the way of things. In the beginning, Ellie had been paranoid, had locked the doors and dragged shut the drapes. She even taught Lucas to fire a gun, one unforgettable wintry day where he’d managed to spear a beer can for the first time, the bullet echoing off the thin trees and their blanket of snow. She taught him to light a fire, shoot rocks with a catapult, to catch and prep the pinky fish that slithered through the river which accompanied the mountain. She taught him everything she could, and it was still not enough.

They hunted him, was the thing. When he was little she had told him stories, in that dreamy voice she had not discovered until she met him. She had never wanted him to fear humans, but it was a necessity, like fearing the dark or the red-bellied shine of a black widow, and so she raised him on horror tales. As he got older he learned the truth, no matter how she tried to hide it from him. They wanted him skinned, they wanted him captured or stuffed or experimented on. It hardly bore thinking about.

In the early days, before she thought of him as family, she had been afraid. It shamed her to admit it, but her first thought upon seeing a shaggy-coated toddler come limping out the treeline had been _fear_ . A monster, here in the dim light of a purpling sunset. A _thing_. The stories were true: Bigfoot walked among them, and here was its offspring. Surely the adults would not be far behind. 

Ellie ran back to her cabin and bolted the doors. She peered out the window, wondering how long it would take her to unlock the gun box, how many minutes she had spare before those monstrosities attacked.

The attack never came, and as she crouched there by the windowsill all she saw was a frightened child, just a little scrap of a thing, a boy with tears staining his dirty face. He was wailing. Ellie knew he would attract a predator soon enough, and so she made a choice. The first choice of many, a succession of decisions that would permanently alter her life. She unlocked the door and lifted the toddler onto her hip. She brought him into her home even as she recoiled from the rough texture of his baby fur.

He was grubby, so it made sense to bath him, and then she fed him boiled chicken, and then she let him nap on her couch while she untangled his clean fur between her fingers. And then she let him stay the night, and made him eggs for breakfast, and suddenly it had been days, and still she waited for the others to claim him, and still no rescue came. She stopped flinching every time he flung himself into her lap, stopped dreaming of great hairy beasts ransacking her place. He was a monster, yes, but she was growing used to him. He was just a baby.

That had been ten years ago, and now she had to fend off hunters every spring and summer because her teenage son kept getting caught. She could not keep him caged, but god she wished he was more careful.

“I want you to stay in today,” she warned him over oatmeal one morning in rainy April. She passed him his bowl and fixed him with her most serious of looks.

“But--”

“But nothing. You know what time it is. You’re getting sloppy.”

“I’m just walkin’. There’s nothing wrong with that. What, can’t I walk now?”

“ _Lucas._ You know full well that you can’t. Not when there are people about.”

“People are everywhere.”

“Exactly.” She took a spoonful of her oatmeal; she’d made it too bland. She added more sugar, not taking her eyes off her sulking son.

“I’m a person too, I should be able to go out and walk.”

“It’s life or death Luc, you know that.”

He fiddled with his fingers, flicking them outwards. He stared into his oatmeal as if it could offer him some advice. He was a tough kid, Ellie knew. She had raised him to be brave, but the teenage years were hard on everyone.

He perked up a little. “Come with me then. Just a short walk, after sunset. There won’t be anyone around after sunset.”

“Alright,” she conceded with a smile. “Just a quick one. And we’re sticking to the woods.”

“Okay!”

He was irritable that day, too impatient. He stared out the window willing the sun to go down, to shirk its duty for just one day. He didn’t complete any of the schoolwork she gave him. His copy of _Of Mice and Men_ went unopened. He barely ate, which was such a change that it gave her whiplash.

“Can we go now?” he kept asking, until:

“Fine. It’s getting dark out. Get your coat.”

He laughed at that, at the terrible unintended pun, and she rolled her eyes. He shrugged his way into his jacket and she did the same. She wordlessly tucked the gun into the waistband of her jeans, double and triple checking that the safety was on. She didn’t need to say who the gun was for, after all, there were monsters about.

They locked the back door behind them, and made for the treeline. It was even darker in there, and the sky had turned a beautiful red that caused Ellie to gasp. Somewhere a bird took wing and the sound of it was thick in the close air. She said goodbye to the sky as she let the trees swallow her up.

It would be a lie to say he was a wished-for child, she thought as the sky disappeared. Her life here in the mountains was lonely; the solitude was the point. She had moved here as soon as it was financially viable. She liked that her nearest neighbour was some doomsday prepper twenty miles away, and the nearest store carried newspapers several days out of date. It was a slower pace of life than her childhood in the city, but it felt somehow easier. There was less to worry about--Bigfeet notwithstanding. The woods were endless, or so they seemed when you were in them. Who knew how many creatures lurked between the green? The darkness never let her forget where her boy had come from.

She had never seen another of his kind, but it didn’t stop her wondering as they made their way through the woods. Lucas kept trying to climb trees, his sneakers crunching the bark into dust, and he seemed so settled, so at home here, that she half expected him to run off into the distance and disappear forever. Ellie had always been pragmatic and she knew, though it hurt her to think of it, that her child was not truly hers, that he belonged to the forest and the mountains and the wild. Somewhere out there, perhaps not too far away, were his kin. She was only borrowing him for a while, and one day they would claim him back.

“Mom,” Lucas said, as he peeled moss off the trunk of a gnarly-looking sycamore, getting it all under his fingernails. He flicked moss at her and gave her his goofiest grin.

Ellie dodged it with a yelp. “What?”

“Thank you for finding me,” he said, looking at the ground, at his shoes scuffing against the roots that had broken through the earth. He was a difficult one to figure out, her son. He always managed to catch her off-guard.

“I think _you_ found _me_ ,” she said.

He smiled at this. “And I’m sorry you have to be so worried about things.”

“Hey. It’s my job to worry.”

He was fourteen, just a boy really, but he had a solid head on those furry shoulders. She lightly jabbed his arm to break the tension, and he laughed, a real laugh that bubbled forth and filled the close air about them. He brushed aside the fur that was getting in his eyes. She should cut that soon, turn the kitchen into a salon and hack at his brown fur with inexpert scissors. 

There was mist gathering about the tree trunks, and he chopped it aside as they resumed their walking. Ellie could hear something in the distance. It sounded like trucks, like the rumble of human activity, though she supposed it could just as easily be the Bigfeet. She wasn’t sure which would be more unwelcome. She squeezed the gun, for reassurance. 

“Be careful,” she whispered. “I hear something.”

“What?” 

It was getting clearer now. Human voices, several of them, fast approaching. This late in the day? What were they doing?

“Hide,” she hissed. “Now!”

Lucas clumsily climbed a tree, sitting in the nook, his moonish eyes glaring downwards.

“Keep quiet,” she told him, then left him behind, trying to cover their tracks. If the humans thought she was alone, they wouldn’t bother her. In theory.

The voices belonged to four men, who approached from down an avenue of trees. They had the telltale weapons of hunters, and she felt a flicker of pain deep in her body. Lucas was only thirty feet away, a sitting duck.

“Ma’am,” they greeted her, and she nodded in response.

One of the men, the one with the shotgun, scowled at her. “Ma’am, what are you doing out here this late?”

“I live here,” she countered. “I could ask the same about you?”

Mr Shotgun grinned, and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “We’re hunting.”

“Visibility’s a bit low,” she tried to keep it light, and hoped her voice didn’t betray her.

The one with the crossbow stepped up. “They only come out after dark, see.”

“You’re hunting… badgers?”

“Nah,” said the one with the pistol. “Bigfoot.” He evidently thought this would impress her, but she only raised her eyebrows.

“You mean, like, for real?” She hoped playing stupid would buy her time to think. She was regretting not sending Lucas back to the house; now he could only lie in wait and hope the situation fell in his favor.

“Real as can be,” Mr Shotgun said. “You might wanna head home miss, they’re known to be aggressive fuckers.”

“I’ve lived here for ten years, and never seen any sign of them,” she lied. “I go walking in these woods all the time, all up and down the mountain.”

“Maybe you just don’t know what to look for. We’ve tracked them here. The tracks are fresh, maybe a few hours old. They have to be around here somewhere.” He gestured to the trees at large as though maybe a Bigfoot was lurking nearby, and it was so close to the truth that Ellie flinched.

“And you’re planning on…?”

Mr Shotgun drew a breath, but was interrupted by the cracking of a sizable branch. It thumped to the ground some thirty feet away. Ellie thought of her son, and of the gun nestled in the crook of her back. Could she do it? Could she kill some clueless stranger, just because he happened across their path? She stood no chance against four of them.

The cracking intensified. Several more branches dropped, and they could hear footsteps. Ellie thought of bears, or coyotes, or something, but the men looked at each other and cheered as though this were all some game.

“This is it,” Mr Shotgun said. The men disappeared off between a line of trees, heading for the source of all the noise, and Ellie was grateful they were gone, honestly, she was grateful they were heading in the opposite direction to her son. She was about to call Lucas down when something heavy and warm collided with her, knocking her down onto her ass. The gun fell and skidded before she could grab it.

She looked up, into the golden eyes of a face she had grown used to over the years. All that familiarity didn’t take away from the fear she felt upon making eye-contact with a nine foot tall, hulking beast, a great big shaggy creature crouching behind a fallen tree. Was it scared? She couldn’t think straight.

It advanced, and Ellie scrambled for the gun, but too late--the creature grabbed the front of her jacket and hoisted her upright. Its face was inches from her own. She could smell blood, could see the dangerous curve of its yellow canine. 

“Mom!”

“Stay back Lucas!”

He came running into the clearing anyway, his fur all sticky from the tree sap he’d been sitting in. He launched himself onto the gun and jumped upright, pointing the gun at Ellie and her attacker. It shook, along with his whole body. 

“Put my mom down!” But then he seemed to realize exactly who he was pointing the gun at, his nine foot tall long lost cousin for all she knew. Lucas’s mouth hung open, the shock plain on his face as he was confronted with another of his kin. He could not remember them from before; he had known nothing but humans, only Ellie for ten long years, and she had fought damn hard to keep it that way.

Ellie struggled against the creature’s grasp. She felt its razor sharp teeth pierce the sensitive skin of her throat. They had minutes, maybe, until the hunters found them and the situation went further south. She had to think fast.

The creature seemed surprised to see Lucas too, because it dropped Ellie to the ground like a hot potato. She felt her ankle twist uncomfortably as she landed, and then excruciating pain shot up her entire left leg. It wrapped around her spine and she screamed in pain, an animal sound, a _howl_.

“Mom!” Lucas ran to her side, hoisting her up onto her good leg. She tried to put weight on the left but another white hot spike of pain consumed her and she yelped again.

“We have to get out of here,” she said, through gritted teeth. She turned to the creature. “Run! Get it? You have to leave. Go on!” She tried to shoo it, but lost her balance and crumpled onto Lucas’s shoulder.

She was afraid yes, of course she was afraid, but this was just some innocent creature, for all it had tried to throttle her thirty seconds ago. She didn’t want it to get hurt, if she could help it. It was no different to a bear, or a deer. It was part of the forests as much as anything; _they_ were the ones encroaching. So what if it was a monster? So were they.

“Luc,” she hissed, “Help me out.”

The creature seemed enrapt with Lucas, staring at him with those unblinking amber eyes. Every twitch that Lucas made, every nervous shuffling half-step, the creature tracked. It was breathing heavily, as though it had just been running, and there was spittal collecting in its beard. It looked aged, fine lines making crow’s feet at the corners of its eyes, occasional specks of gray in the fur.

They heard a gunshot, and everyone flinched. In her surprise, Ellie put weight on her bad ankle and she howled again, the sound mingling with the echo of the gunshot still caught in her ear.

“Get the fuck away from her!” Mr Shotgun’s voice preceded him into the clearing, and the creature cowered behind Lucas. He must have thought the creature had hurt her, which it technically had. Mr Shotgun was about to try again, and likely hit the target this time, when he drew up short at Lucas’s appearance. A Bigfoot, in human clothes? He screwed his face up in confusion.

“-the fuck?” He looked at Ellie, at the way she leant on her son, at the way he was staring up at her waiting for instruction, his pale eyes going cloudy with tears.

“Please,” Ellie could only manage a whisper. “Please, don’t shoot.”

Mr Shotgun seemed to have no idea how to process what was happening, no idea how to react to finally being faced with the undeniable reality of his quarry. He’d wasted years of his life searching for Bigfoot, and now he had two at once.

“What’s going on here?”

“He’s my son, please, don’t hurt him,” she implored.

“Your-- _what_?”

“I took him in, when he was just a baby. Just a little thing. He’s done nothing wrong. They’re not aggressive creatures.”

The creature, however, seemed likely to prove Ellie wrong, as it advanced on Mr Shotgun.

“I’ll shoot,” he said, but he sounded uncertain, now that it came down to it.

“It doesn’t understand,” Ellie said. “Please, lower the gun.”

“You’re fucking crazy!”

The creature took hold of the shotgun’s barrel and squeezed it. The metal molded willingly between its fingers, like a hot knife through butter, like it was a paper cup to be discarded with the garbage. It grinned toothily at Mr Shotgun, who turned a scary shade of white as the blood abandoned his face.

Ellie limped over to the creature. “If you hurt him, his friends will kill you, understand?” She pointed to the ruined shotgun, then at the creature. It let out a growl of affirmation, or so she assumed. It gave the shotgun another squeeze, twisting it back on itself.

“Lucas,” Ellie said calmly, “Go home.”

“But-” 

“But nothing! Go, now.”

Lucas hunched up his shoulders, but gave no further protest. He slinked from the clearing, and Ellie kept her eyes on Mr Shotgun with every step her son took. She was praying he wouldn’t get another fit of bravery. She wanted him scared stiff, immobile and pliant.

“Mr-” she had no idea what his real name was.

“Hank,” he croaked, eyes boring into the creature. How long had it been since he blinked?

“Hank,” Ellie said, “I think we can come to some sort of agreement here, yes?”

“‘Agreement’? You’re crazy. You don’t agree with these creatures--you put them down.” He cast a glance about, as though expecting his friends.

“Let it be,” she prayed, “Just let it go.”

“I--I’ve waited my entire life for this--I--my _entire_ life. Why would I let it go?”

“Because it’s a living creature. A scared one, at that.”

He seemed like the sort of man who had shot a frightened creature or two.

The creature cocked its head as it regarded Hank with growing curiosity. She wondered, had it seen many humans? How many had it killed, and for what? 

“It’s no different than a bear,” Ellie pointed out.

“Yeah,” laughed Hank uneasily, “And I’d shoot a damn bear if one came at me.”

“Okay,” she sighed, “Bad analogy. What I mean is--it’s just an innocent. It hasn’t hurt you, nor do I think it will try to.”

Hank looked over his shoulder. They heard the telltale rustling leaves of company arriving. They were maybe twenty yards away, twenty-five if they were lucky. They were separated from seeing the creature by a close gathering of trees, pines dripping needles.

“Tell them to go away,” Ellie said. “Just walk away. Just this once.” She knew how close to the wire she was dangling, how easily everything could go so very wrong.

The creature was breathing heavily, its breath gathering in a fog about its face. Surely the hunters could hear it? It sensed the approaching danger and backed away, and finally Ellie could breathe. The creature stared at her for a short while, those amber eyes drilling into her own, and then it was gone, darting off between the trees, agile as a buck.

“Over here,” Hank hailed his friends, and the trees parted for them. They looked as though they had been running, their breath holding in thick clouds in the close air. Their weapons were high and ready. 

Ellie’s stomach sank. She counted the seconds, wondering how much of a head start the creature would have. She thought desperately of her son, probably back at the cabin by now, just a sitting duck at the mercy of strangers. 

The gun was heavy and cold in her hands; could she do it? She felt sick, but lurking in the back of her mind was that protective instinct that seemed to be on fire as she watched Hank’s face fighting through a series of unfathomable emotions. Shock, chiefly among them, and a savage kind of greed. What kind of man was he, she thought, who could consider killing a boy?

“Let’s get out of here,” Hank said at length, and Ellie finally breathed.

“What the fuck happened to your gun?” asked his crossbow-wielding friend.

Ellie’s fingers tightened around the gun. She could do it, for Lucas, it was simple really. Just squeeze the trigger.

“I fell,” Hank lied, terribly.

“You fell? And bent the damn steel?”

“Yeah,” Hank scoffed. 

His friends chewed on that for a while, and collectively they seemed to buy it. 

“Let’s get outta here,” Hank said again, firmer this time. 

“Hold up,” said Crossbow Guy. “What happened to her leg?”

Ellie was still limping. She thought maybe it was broken; it felt more sinister than a sprain, more serious. There were white hot rivulets of pain shooting up her entire leg.

“She fall too?” said Crossbow Guy. His suspension of disbelief was getting stratospheric.

“It’s so dark,” Ellie tried to sound pitiful, “I tripped on a rock.”

“A rock? And broke your damn ankle?”

“I fell funny. I once broke my wrist making eggs,” she tried to sound blasé, like her heart wasn’t hammering away like a hummingbird in her chest. The lie came easily in her panic.

“Ah.”

“Are we hunting or what?” Hank said, sounding impatient. “I didn’t see a damn thing so we’re going back to searching for tracks, alright?” 

“Bigfoot tracks?” Ellie laughed, high and trilling, an alien sound in her mouth. She wondered if it betrayed her nerves. She tried to calm herself. They were leaving, Hank hadn’t seen a thing, everything would be okay. For now.

“You’ll be laughing when we bring you its pelt,” sneered Crossbow Guy, but he evidently didn’t care too much about defending himself because he turned and followed his buddy back through the parted trees, pine needles dripping down like soft rain.

“Thank you,” Ellie mouthed to Hank, who still looked thoroughly shocked. He shrugged, as though it were nothing, and hurried off to catch up to his friends, leaving Ellie standing there on uneven legs, wobbling in place.

It was done. Everything would be ok. She looked down at her leg, finally allowing herself to inspect it. The cuff of her pant leg was cutting into the swollen skin beneath; they’d have to cut them off her for sure. She couldn’t feel the pressure. It felt like it was on fire if she was being honest. It was probably a bad break--she did not much relish the thought of spending the night in the ER.

She turned and began the long limp back to the trail.


End file.
